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New results from NASA's Phoenix Mars lander suggest that the surface layers of the Martian arctic region may not be as friendly to life as initial results suggested, NASA said today. Two samples analyzed within the last month by Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) suggest that the Martian dirt may contain perchlorate, a highly oxidizing substance, which would create a harsh environment for any potential life. The findings stand against the results from MECA's first analysis, which indicated the dirt was Earth-like in certain respects, including its pH and the presence of certain minerals. "Initial MECA analyses suggested...

The Mars rover Opportunity's examination of Martian rocks last week provided the first convincing evidence that our neighbour world was once "awash" in water, as one NASA scientist described it. But where did the water come from? And why does Mars have no liquid water now, while Earth apparently has been covered with the stuff for 4 billion years? Scientists are just beginning to piece the story together, and it goes right back to the beginning. Mars, like Earth, was formed from dusty and rocky debris left over after the sun was born 4.57 billion years ago. Initially, there were...

PASADENA, Calif. - The Mars rover Spirit found a mineral linked to water during its exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Monday. Scientists identified the mineral goethite in bedrock studied in the West Spur area of the Columbia Hills. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, were sent to Mars to look for geologic evidence of a watery past. Both rovers, especially Opportunity, have found such evidence in their nearly year-long treks over the martian surface, but the goethite find is particularly important, a mission scientist said in a JPL statement. "Goethite, like the jarosite that Opportunity found...

NASA to Announce 'Significant Findings' of Water on Mars Tuesday By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 03:30 pm ET 01 March 2004 NASA will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce "significant findings" about water on Mars based on evidence from its Opportunity Mars rover. "It's going to be the most significant science results that we've had from the rovers, and it's bearing on their primary mission," NASA spokesperson Don Savage told SPACE.com. That mission is to find signs of water that might support life. Will the announcement change how we think about Mars? "Anything of a significant...

A set of photographs snapped by one of Mars space probes has found evidence that water flowed on the surface of the Red Planet as recently as several years ago, NASA announced on Wednesday. "The Mars orbiter camera has seen changes in the surface of the planet within the last seven years, highlighting critical processes that have altered that surface," Michael Meyer, of the NASA Mars Exploration Program, told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday. "The Mars exploration program has been following the water since the mid-90s and now we have found it. Water seems to have flowed on...

NASA gets good look at Mars soil and a true puzzle By Jeremy Manier, Tribune staff reporter Opening its primary digital eyes for the first time, the rover Spirit on Tuesday transmitted the most detailed photos ever sent from the surface of Mars, revealing an alien vista of deep russet sands, a mysteriously sticky form of soil and a far-off mesa in the light orange haze. The rocky scene is about four times sharper than any previous photos from the planet, and experts said the probe should be sending even larger, three-dimensional views of its terrain within a few days....

Planetary scientists have long wondered why Mars is only about half the size and one-tenth the mass of Earth. As next-door neighbors in the inner solar system, probably formed about the same time, why isn't Mars more like Earth and Venus in size and mass? A paper published in the journal Nature this week provides the first cohesive explanation and, by doing so, reveals an unexpected twist in the early lives of Jupiter and Saturn as well. Dr. Kevin Walsh, a research scientist at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), led an international team performing simulations of the early solar system, demonstrating...

A new study of gas in meteorites suggests Mars was bitterly cold for pretty much all of the past 4 billion years, putting the freeze on hopes that the red planet had any extended wet periods during which life could have flourished. Several rocks that were once near the surface of Mars, and have in the past few million years been kicked up by impacts that sent them to Earth, have been freezing cold for most of the past four billion years, the study concludes. While the findings don't rule out the possibility of life on Mars, they indicate that...

LOS ANGELES - Two new studies are challenging the notion that the desolate Martian plains once brimmed with salty pools of water that could have supported some form of life. Instead, the studies argue, the layered rock outcrops probed by NASA's robot rover Opportunity and interpreted as signs of ancient water could have been left by explosive volcanic ash or a meteorite impact eons ago. That would suggest a far more violent and dry history than proposed by the scientists operating Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, on the other side of the planet.The new scenarios, published in Thursday's journal...

There is something of a paradox about Mars," agrees Joshua Bandfield of Arizona State University in Tempe. His team recently showed that the planet has no large deposits of carbonates, which should have formed if giant pools of water had persisted on the surface. Bandfield suggests that liquid water must have occasionally burst out of the ground, carving channels and gullies, but that it quickly froze again in the frigid Martian climate... A consensus is now growing among planetary specialists, however, that except for brief early periods more than 4 billion years ago when gigantic meteors might have heated the...

Scientists found life on Mars back in the 70s By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/08/2007 The soil on Mars may indeed be teeming with microbes, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago. Mars could be home to “extremophiles” The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity. There was another flurry of excitement a decade later, when Nasa thought it had found evidence of life in a Mars meteorite...

Future missions may have to drill nearly 10 metres below the surface of Mars to find any life there, a new study concludes. The research suggests the best places to search for Martian life are blocks of water ice or gullies that show signs of recent water flow. Researchers have long known that the Red Planet's surface is a harsh environment for life – with high levels of ultraviolet light from the Sun and oxidising conditions that seem to make organic molecules unstable. Charged particles – both from the Sun and from violent sources such as supernovae within the galaxy...

TUCSON, Ariz. – Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that." The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench...

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said. Solar Cycles Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's...

Global warming on Mars? In the other study, led by Michael C. Malin, features at the south pole were observed to retreat by up to 10 feet (3 meters) from one Martian year to the next. The odd shapes -- circular pits, ridges and mounds -- were first photographed in 1999. Since then, the features have eroded away by up to 50 percent.

JPL video here

Large outcrops of a gemstone mineral commonly used in jewellery have been found on the surface of Mars. On Earth, the mineral olivine takes the form of the brilliant green gemstone peridot. An instrument aboard a Nasa spacecraft spotted a 30,000 square kilometre area rich in olivine in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The mineral, detected by the Mars Global Surveyor, was exposed on the surface. Scientists believe it might have been thrust up from below the ground by faults and fractures that cover the area. Olivine is abundant in the Earth's outer mantle, the layer just below the...

Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere more than a billion years before the Earth, say scientists. An examination of meteorites and rocks on the planet suggests that oxygen was affecting the Martian surface four billion years ago. On Earth, oxygen did not build up to appreciable quantities in the atmosphere for at least another 1.5bn years

Hints of huge water reservoirs on Mars 19:00 25 January 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga Mars once had enough water for a global ocean several hundred metres deep, but where has it gone? (Illustration: NASA/Greg Shirah) Mars is losing little water to space, according to new research, so much of its ancient abundance may still be hidden beneath the surface. Dried up riverbeds and other evidence imply that Mars once had enough water to fill a global ocean more than 600 metres deep, together with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide that kept the planet warm enough for the...

An artist’s impression of the ancient ocean on Mars, which lasted for billions of years more than was previously thought. A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of the northern hemisphere of Mars making the planet a more promising place for alien life to have gained a foothold, Nasa scientists say. The huge body of water spread over a fifth of the planet’s surface, as great a portion as the Atlantic covers the Earth, and was a mile deep in places. In total, the ocean held 20 million cubic kilometres of water, or more than is found in the...